this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
1169 points (93.8% liked)
Memes
45549 readers
1378 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Ethical as in it's goods and services for currency. Ethical in that no one is being exploited actively. Commerce requires legislation.
Commerce deals with the distribution of value, production with the creation of it. So let's say there is a widget factory. If one person "owns" it and thousands work to make widgets, their production is stolen through ownership, which causes deeper issues beyond the obvious as well.
Commerce doesn't cause problems as it's just resolving a situation of swapping the widgets you made for carrots. Barring some market-twisting forces like the stock market for example, a simple free market where you're happy with the amount of carrots you get for the amount of widgets you get is fine.
The evil of capitalism is not that you can trade. The evil of capitalism is that you go to work, and receive a fraction of the product of your work while someone else who does not work at all receives a lot of it.
Technically the current capitalist western system would be socialist, if employment without ownership would be outlawed, and coops were the enforced norm.
♪ We live, We work, We buy/die ♪